Republican legislative leaders from the House and Senate responded to Gov. Tom Wolf’s budget address Tuesday afternoon, saying the nearly $1 billion spending increase over last year’s enacted budget proposed by the governor is a non-starter in their respective chambers.

Gov. Tom Wolf Tuesday gave his fourth budget address, the last of his current term, that proposes a spending plan ringing in at $33 billion in expenditures and prioritizes education funding and workforce development initiatives while once again calling for a severance tax, agency consolidations, and per capita municipal fee to pay for State Police coverage of municipalities without their own police force.

A late night effort Tuesday by a bipartisan group of supporters of natural gas severance tax legislation failed to get the constitutional majority needed to call the bill up to continue debate on the amendment process related to the legislation.

While the motion by Rep. Todd Stephens (R-Montgomery) received a majority vote from members present, such a motion requires a constitutional majority of all members seated in the House.

In a move some were hoping would keep the issue from additional floor debate for some time, a motion in the Pennsylvania House of Representatives Monday attempted, but ultimately failed, to send a highly contentious natural gas severance tax bill back to committee.

After nearly two full days of pre-Thanksgiving debate, the Pennsylvania House of Representatives considered 23 of the nearly 400 amendments filed to House Bill 1401, legislation that would implement a volumetric natural gas tax in Pennsylvania.

With the House not returning to voting session until December 4, here is a look at the amendments approved by the House during the still ongoing second consideration process last week.